Think gun crime is worse now? Not so.

Findings counter impressions that firearm use is on rise

San Diego  It is the subject of nightly television news reports, daily newspaper stories and prime time dramas. Gun violence is seemingly everywhere you turn.

Ask Americans how bad they think gun crime is, and 82 percent will say it is either worse than it was 20 years ago, or mostly the same, according to a Pew Research Center survey released this month.

But the numbers on gun crime show otherwise.

Firearm homicide and other gun crimes — including robbery and assault — are strikingly lower than they were two decades ago, a trend that has mirrored the decline of violent crime overall, according to new county and national data.

In San Diego County, gun homicides fell about 69 percent in the past 20 years.

In fact, the majority of gun deaths are suicides, accounting for six out of 10 gun deaths nationwide. Locally, suicide made up more than two-thirds of the 211 gun deaths last year, the county Medical Examiner’s Office reported.

So how did the public perception get so skewed?

Professor Sheldon Zhang, chair of the sociology department at San Diego State University, said the public has always believed gun violence and crime to be high — whether the actual statistics back it up or not.

“The perception of gun violence has remained relatively stable across the decades,” said the professor, who specializes in criminology. “By and large, Americans and foreigners all think the U.S. is a country with a high level of gun violence.”

The crack cocaine epidemic of the late 1980s and early 1990s that fueled gang turf wars, drive-by shootings and random violence climaxed in the early ‘90s, when gun homicides peaked around the nation and in San Diego County.

Since then, gun homicides have fallen 72 percent nationwide — with 11,078 in 2010 compared to 39,595 in 1993, Pew reports. Nonfatal gun crime also has decreased, with 467,000 incidents in 2011 compared to 1.5 million in 1993.

In San Diego County, overall crime is back to levels not seen since the 1960s.

“Try telling that to people on the street, and they’ll laugh at you, and probably have their own anecdotes or stories,” Zhang said. “That’s the problem. It’s a constant battle, we have to constantly remind people.”

Gun deaths in San Diego

“These things are pretty hard to hide, unlike rape, assault and robbery (which) often times go unreported,” said Zhang. “Homicides are among the best-reported crime statistics.”

Of the 110 murders in San Diego County last year, about half involved firearms.

Handguns have been shown to be the weapon of choice when it comes to suicides and homicides, according to county medical examiner data.

So who is using guns, and who is being victimized? Local analysis suggests it is overwhelmingly men killing other men in gang violence and fights. Last year, Latino males were most likely to be victimized, followed by black males — a disproportionate share when it comes to county population figures.